ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the politics of space. Using Rancière's terminology, it uses the idea of the 'distribution of the sensible' to consider the possibilities and foreclosures that the semi-permanent occupation of public urban space might afford movements like Occupy (in) London. The chapter begins with a discussion of the aesthetic possibilities offered by the occupation of space. They are being public; allowing a semi-permanence; and taking place in a meaningful symbolic context that activists could then twist, détourne, and refigure. The chapter argues that by virtue of these traits the occupation of space has the radical potential to intervene in the police order and to challenge the given co-ordinates of the situation. When the police order distributes what may or may not legitimately appear or be heard within a given context, the public, semi-permanent, and contextually embedded occupation of space offers a radical potential.
